After recently calibrating my display my exported jpgs are much too dark. The images look fine in Photoshop but not in any other image viewer. I realize most viewers aren't aware of calibration profiles, but what can I do about it ? How should I export my images for the web and how should I process images that I want to submit to a black and white contest ?

2) sRGB is pretty much the standard viewing environment. Most displays use sRGB, so with sRGB you cannot go wrong.

If you use anything other than sRGB you must be sure that the receiver has correctly set up color management.

I am somewhat confused. CM errors don't normally result in dark images. Why don't you use a color managed browser? When you calibrated you monitor, did you adjust brightness? I settled on 90 cd/m^2 (I think).

Adobe RGB is better but cannot be displayed by most screens. The only advantage of Adobe RGB over sRGB is handling of blue/greens. If an image fits in sRGB it is probably preferable over Adobe RGB.

After recently calibrating my display my exported jpgs are much too dark. The images look fine in Photoshop but not in any other image viewer. I realize most viewers aren't aware of calibration profiles, but what can I do about it ? How should I export my images for the web and how should I process images that I want to submit to a black and white contest ?

After recently calibrating my display my exported jpgs are much too dark. The images look fine in Photoshop but not in any other image viewer. I realize most viewers aren't aware of calibration profiles, but what can I do about it ? How should I export my images for the web and how should I process images that I want to submit to a black and white contest ?

The solution is to convert you images to sRGB. Why? Two reasons:1) Essentially all imaging software treates any untagged image as sRGB2) sRGB is pretty much the standard viewing environment. Most displays use sRGB, so with sRGB you cannot go wrong.

It's a good but partial fix. I don't agree that all software treats untagged images as sRGB or that you cannot go wrong. Non color managed app's have zero idea what sRGB is, what state the display is in and simply sends 'raw' RGB numbers to the display. IF the data is in sRGB and IF the display produces something close to sRGB, then the image will look OK. It will not necessarily match anyone else's system. The "use sRGB for non color managed work" is a compromise at best. I also don't understand sRGB is pretty much the standard viewing environment. If you profile enough displays and compare that profile in 3D to sRGB, well they might line up well or they may be way off. IF you can calibrate a display to an sRGB target (easy even on my wide gamut NEC's), then presumably you have a color managed display system and hopefully a color managed browser. Doesn't mean anyone else does or will see what you see.

It's really just a big mess. We need everyone to at the very least calibrate their displays and use ICC aware browsers and other app's if our goal is to hope others will see what we see. And as more and more wide gamut displays hit the market (and they are and will continue), the 'use sRGB as an assumption' falls apart. In 5 years, everyone might be saying "save in Adobe RGB (1998)" because so many of the sRGB-like displays are in the land fill and they are using a newer lowest common denominator (Adobe RGB).

IF you can calibrate a display to an sRGB target (easy even on my wide gamut NEC's), then presumably you have a color managed display system and hopefully a color managed browser.

To be clear, with most monitors you can't alter the colour space by calibration. You can with many NECs, some Dells and many higher-end monitors; these monitors can emulate a colour space, provided it has a narrower gamut than the monitor's native gamut. So you can set the monitor to behave as sRGB, for example.

For other monitors (where you can't alter the colour space of the monitor) the colour space is what it is. The purpose of colour management is not to "make the monitor sRGB" or whatever (as you can't). Rather, the software maps the colours of the image to the colours of the monitor, which are measured as part of the profiling process. (Even for monitors whose colour space can be altered, generally you get better results with full colour management as well.)

Without colour management and a calibrated and profiled monitor, the colours on every monitor are different. Unless you use colour management, and the person looking at your web page uses colour management, you just can't tell what the image will look like on their monitor.

For other monitors (where you can't alter the colour space of the monitor) the colour space is what it is. The purpose of colour management is not to "make the monitor sRGB" or whatever (as you can't). Rather, the software maps the colours of the image to the colours of the monitor, which are measured as part of the profiling process. (Even for monitors whose colour space can be altered, generally you get better results with full colour management as well.)

Yes, exactly and thanks for bringing this up. Calibration is one process but the profile is what color managed app's really need. IOW, you could take the display just as it was out of the box and just profile it as is. If the display is only "55%" spot on for sRGB, doesn't matter, it doesn't have to be like sRGB. The sRGB document (any tagged image) along with the display profile will produce a color managed preview. We don't have to attempt to force a display to behave as the sRGB spec is defined (for a very old CRT display).

D Fosse

In 5 years, everyone might be saying "save in Adobe RGB (1998)" because so many of the sRGB-like displays are in the land fill and they are using a newer lowest common denominator (Adobe RGB).

I don't think that's going to happen. High-end monitors from NEC and Eizo aside, most manufacturers seem to have given up wide gamut as it turned out to not be the selling point they expected.

Take Dell. Two or three years ago the Ultrasharp line was exclusively wide gamut. Now there are more standard-gamut than wide-gamut models. The same happened to the comparable models from HP. And lately there has been a wave of relatively inexpensive IPS monitors from every major manufacturer - clearly aimed at the upper end of the consumer market. All of them are standard gamut. Eizo and NEC are also represented in this segment.

I think for most non-professionals wide gamut is just a huge complication of their lives, with very few benefits. Things change rapidly of course, but at the moment wide gamut simply doesn't seem to have the momentum to break into the mass market.

If Microsoft got it together and produced a fully color managed IE (and by that I mean Firefox mode 1-managed), and they made it easy for the average consumer joe to switch default monitor profile from sRGB to Adobe RGB, then maybe.

I thought the latest version of IE was color managed. Not that I'd use it.

From my tests, I think IE9 (and IE10 in W8) is sort of half colour managed. It respects embedded image profiles (so it appears to pass the test at http://color.org/version4html.xalter) but it ignores monitor profiles. It seems to map colour from image profile to sRGB, whatever the monitor profile.

Perversely, Chrome is also half colour managed, but the other half! It maps to the monitor colour space, but ignores embedded image profiles, assuming all images to be sRGB.

I really can't understand either behaviour. If you go to all the trouble of implementing colour management, you have to map from one profile to another profile - so why not use the correct profiles?

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D Fosse

The IE implementation (if you can call it that) is utterly meaningless from almost every conceivable angle. All they did was to ensure that if you do have a wide gamut monitor, everything will be wrong. No exception. Even if people deliberately posted Adobe RGB for the benefit of the wide gamut users, it would be wrong, because the display gets sRGB.

And of course the obvious point that Simon Garrett made, repeated for emphasis: if you're converting anyway, why not do it to the right profile?

That's why Firefox in mode 1 is so brilliant: aside from honoring embedded profiles, it actively assigns sRGB to all untagged material (including webpage elements) and converts to monitor profile. It doesn't just pass it on to the display unchanged, as Safari (or FF mode 2) does. So you could say that with Firefox, sRGB really is the web standard.

2) sRGB is pretty much the standard viewing environment. Most displays use sRGB, so with sRGB you cannot go wrong.

If you use anything other than sRGB you must be sure that the receiver has correctly set up color management.

I am somewhat confused. CM errors don't normally result in dark images. Why don't you use a color managed browser? When you calibrated you monitor, did you adjust brightness? I settled on 90 cd/m^2 (I think).

Adobe RGB is better but cannot be displayed by most screens. The only advantage of Adobe RGB over sRGB is handling of blue/greens. If an image fits in sRGB it is probably preferable over Adobe RGB.

2) sRGB is pretty much the standard viewing environment. Most displays use sRGB, so with sRGB you cannot go wrong.

If you use anything other than sRGB you must be sure that the receiver has correctly set up color management.

I am somewhat confused. CM errors don't normally result in dark images. Why don't you use a color managed browser? When you calibrated you monitor, did you adjust brightness? I settled on 90 cd/m^2 (I think).

Adobe RGB is better but cannot be displayed by most screens. The only advantage of Adobe RGB over sRGB is handling of blue/greens. If an image fits in sRGB it is probably preferable over Adobe RGB.

Regarding shutter induced vibrations I have seen that tripod matters. I had a Manfrotto tripod with Manfrottos heaviest 3D head and hex QR plates and had a lot of problems with my Pentax 67, even with MLU. Later I switched to a Velbon Sherpa Pro 630, with Acratech Ultimate head and QR plates from RRS and the problem went away. I think you want to have minimum elasticity between tripod and a camera. Metal to metal is good, cork plates and rubber is bad. I also think that leg joints are critical. You don't want any play.

Right now, I'm using an RRS 3 series tripod without center column and an Arca D4 geared head. I'm quite happy.

Most of my exposures are 2-4 minutes. I'm not that high tech, shooting a Hasselblad 500 CM with 25 speed film :-)

I lock up the mirror and flip the switch so that the shutter stays open without touching the camera. I realize this might cause some slight movement when I press the shutter but it's a fraction of the exposure. No cork plates, I have an Arca Z1 ballhead with metal plates on an older aluminum manfrotto tripod. It's pretty rigid, but if I put some pressure on the camera I can see that there is some torsional flex around the base of the camera/ball head. It's usually pretty windy but I like the effect it has on clouds, smoke, etc... Could my tripod be bending in the wind ? Is carbon fiber less prone to flexing in the wind ? I'm pixel peeping with a 15X loop but I need critical sharpness because I print 40"x 40" and every little flaw becomes visible at that magnfication.

Regarding shutter induced vibrations I have seen that tripod matters. I had a Manfrotto tripod with Manfrottos heaviest 3D head and hex QR plates and had a lot of problems with my Pentax 67, even with MLU. Later I switched to a Velbon Sherpa Pro 630, with Acratech Ultimate head and QR plates from RRS and the problem went away. I think you want to have minimum elasticity between tripod and a camera. Metal to metal is good, cork plates and rubber is bad. I also think that leg joints are critical. You don't want any play.

Right now, I'm using an RRS 3 series tripod without center column and an Arca D4 geared head. I'm quite happy.

Get one of those large "golf umbrellas" for windy days. Shield the up-wind side of the camera holding the umbrella horizontal to the ground and close to the camera. Works well to keep wind from setting up oscillation in the camera during long exposures.

Most of my exposures are 2-4 minutes. I'm not that high tech, shooting a Hasselblad 500 CM with 25 speed film :-)

I lock up the mirror and flip the switch so that the shutter stays open without touching the camera. I realize this might cause some slight movement when I press the shutter but it's a fraction of the exposure. No cork plates, I have an Arca Z1 ballhead with metal plates on an older aluminum manfrotto tripod. It's pretty rigid, but if I put some pressure on the camera I can see that there is some torsional flex around the base of the camera/ball head. It's usually pretty windy but I like the effect it has on clouds, smoke, etc... Could my tripod be bending in the wind ? Is carbon fiber less prone to flexing in the wind ? I'm pixel peeping with a 15X loop but I need critical sharpness because I print 40"x 40" and every little flaw becomes visible at that magnfication.

This may not apply in your case but I find lenshoods can vibrate in the wind. My solution is to sit a heavy beanbag on top of the lens for long or telephoto shots.Another possible solution is to loop a bungee cord around the top of the tripod (I use a hook screwed under the baseplate) and then down around my foot.